Read The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives Online

Authors: Blaize Clement

The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives (21 page)

BOOK: The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives
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As I latched the door of the broom closet, my cell phone rang. I think I was probably still a little nervous to be alone inside the store, because I yelped like a baby seal. Probably if I’d been wearing high heels, I would have jumped right out of them. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen.

It was Ethan.

I shook my fist and whispered, “Oh
shhhoot
!”

We hadn’t talked all day, which wasn’t completely unheard of, but getting rarer and rarer. I had a feeling it was probably due to “the letter”—the one from Guidry, the one still sitting in a basket on my kitchen counter, the one I still hadn’t opened. The fact that I’d let it sit there this long gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m an old pro when it comes to hiding things from myself, but it wasn’t fair to Ethan. He was probably just as worried about the can of worms that letter might open up as I was.

I sat down on the green velvet sofa, took a deep breath, and flipped the phone open.

Cheerfully as possible, I said, “Hey, what’s up?”

He said, “I was just about to ask you the same thing. What are you doing?”

I wondered what he might say if I told him I’d been hired by Mrs. Silverthorn and that I was sneaking around in Beezy’s Bookstore looking for a missing cat. Then I thought,
Well, there’s only one way to find out.

“Umm, you might want to sit down for this.”

He sighed. “Uh-oh. Now I’m sorry I asked.”

I laughed. “No, really, it’s fine. Ask me where I am right now.”

“Do I have to?”

“I promise it’s not that big a deal.”

“Okay, where are you right now?”

“I’m in Beezy’s Bookstore.”

“What the hell? Really? Did Mr. Hoskins turn up?”

“Unfortunately no. The owner of the building hired me to find his missing cat.”

There was a pause. “The owner of the building…”

“Yup.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“You mean Mrs. Silverthorn?”

I nodded, “Yep. I’m pretty sure somebody already found the cat, but I was walking by and I thought I saw something move inside, so I came in to check it out just to be on the safe side. I think I must have been seeing things.”

“How did you get in?”

“Mrs. Silverthorn gave me the keys herself.”

“Wait a minute, are you telling me you actually met her?”

“Impertinent man!” I said, doing my best impersonation of her. “We didn’t just meet. We had tea in the library at the Silverthorn Mansion!”

There was silence.

I said, “Hello?”

“Uh, yeah. I was just picking my jaw up off the floor. I’ve been working with the Silverthorn family for years and I can barely get that woman to talk to me on the phone.”

I shrugged, “Well, we’re old pals. Maybe I’ll introduce you sometime.”

“I’m not so sure I like the idea of you being in that store alone.”

“Oh poppycock!” I said, doing my Mrs. Silverthorn again. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I guess I’ll just have to trust you on this one,” he said, but then the tone of his voice changed. “Listen…”

I winced. When Ethan starts a sentence with the word “listen,” it usually means something very important is on his mind, but I already knew what it was.

I said, “Wait, I know what you’re going to say, and I’m sorry.”

“What are you now, a mind reader?”

I said, “Sort of. It’s about that letter, right?”

He sighed. “Yeah. Listen, I don’t want to pressure—”

“Ethan, I promise I’ll open it tonight. I don’t know why I’ve been putting it off.”

“Listen, it’s none of my business if—”

“No,
you
listen. It’s completely your business. I’m just not in the habit of thinking about anybody but myself, and it’s been so crazy the last couple of days, and I know you think things were left up in the air with Guidry and me, and I know you know I wouldn’t want to do a thing to make you—”

He interrupted. “Hey.”

“What?”

“First, stop talking. Second, would you like to have dinner tomorrow night?”

I took a deep breath and smiled. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”

“Sweet. I’ll pick you up at eight, but promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If you see anything weird in that store, call me right away.”

I said, “I promise.”

Suddenly it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, a weight I’d been carrying around ever since that letter had arrived. For a long time, everything that had happened to me, big or small, happened to me and me alone. I was beginning to realize that no matter what Guidry had to say in that letter, I wouldn’t have to deal with it by myself now.

That was a feeling I hadn’t had in a very long time.

After I hung up, I pulled a Baggie of kibble out of my pocket and filled the empty bowl under the desk, and then I topped off the water bowl, too, just in case.

As I headed up toward the front of the store, I’d already planned my course of action. First of all, I’d phone Mrs. Silverthorn and tell her Cosmo had probably been found, and if she wanted me to confirm it I’d be happy to check with the local shelters. If he did turn up, I’d take him to the Kitty Haven, where I knew he’d be safe until we figured out what happened to Mr. Hoskins.

Second of all, I’d go home and open that letter. If Guidry was writing to say he’d changed his mind, that he missed me, or that he was unhappy with his new job and leaving New Orleans to come back to me, I’d just have to tell him it was too late, that I was with Ethan now and nothing could change that.

I was just about to get to “third of all” when something stopped me dead in my tracks. I was standing at the front door, my backpack slung over my shoulder, with the cash register and counter just to my right.

My fingers started to tingle.

I took a step back and looked down.

There on the floor, just a few inches from the edge of the counter, was a single, glistening red paw print.

My mind went numb. I gently pulled my backpack around and pulled out my penlight. Then, as quietly as possible, I put the backpack down on the floor and slowly lowered to my hands and knees. I clicked the light on with my thumb and directed its beam into the gap under the counter.

There were a few pennies lodged in a bed of dust and cobwebs next to a yellowed pencil, its edges pocked with teethmarks. To the left, tucked into the corner, was another air-conditioning vent, its metal grille covered in dust and lying on the floor in front of it. The vent opened up into the crawlspace beneath the big picture window, and as the light moved across the opening, I saw from deep within the reflection of two gleaming points of yellow, floating in the dark and staring back at me.

“Cosmo?”

I lay down flat on my stomach and pulled myself even closer under the counter. If I turned my head just so, I could wedge myself close enough to the vent opening to see all the way inside the space under the window. I squeezed my arm through and maneuvered the point of the penlight into the vent.

It illuminated an unfinished crawl space, directly beneath the big display window. It was less than two feet high, about four feet wide, and only about three feet deep. It was the perfect size for a nice kitty hideout, but as I swept the light from one corner of the space to the next, I felt a tremor start to well up from somewhere deep inside my body. The two yellow points of light weren’t cat’s eyes.

They were the shiny brass buttons on Mr. Hoskins’s shirt.

His lifeless body was folded into a crumpled pile in the corner, lying in a pool of half-dried blood, his red beret laid across his face like a death mask.

 

20

It’s hard to say exactly how long I sat there on the floor, my legs folded under me, leaning back against the front of the counter. A kind of calm took over my entire body, as if I were sleepwalking and everything I’d just seen was a dream.

After a while, I pulled myself up off the floor and went out on the sidewalk. My legs were rubber, and I had to lean against the side of the building to steady myself as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I was covered in dust and cobwebs, but at that point I didn’t really care. There was pulsing reggae music playing across the street at Amber Jack’s, and the crowd of revelers there was so loud and boisterous I wondered if Detective McKenzie would think I was at a party when she answered the phone.

As usual, she picked up on the first ring. “McKenzie here.”

I took a deep breath before I realized I hadn’t figured out how to tell her what had happened. I had just dialed her number automatically without even thinking.

I said, “Detective, it’s Dixie Hemingway. I’m not sure what to say, but … I’m standing outside Beezy’s Bookstore. I just found Mr. Hoskins.”

Without skipping a beat she said, “Is he alive?”

I tried to answer as calmly as possible. All I had to do was say one word, but when I tried it choked in my throat. After a couple more tries, McKenzie said, “Oh, Dixie … I’m so sorry.”

I blinked. I hadn’t expected that. Why she was apologizing to me, I had no idea.

“Where is he?”

I swallowed hard. “He’s hidden in the crawl space beneath the display window.”

There was a long pause. Then she said, “Dixie, I don’t know how you got in that bookstore, and for the love of God I’m not sure I want to, but don’t go back in until I get there.”

She rang off, and I almost laughed out loud. The first thing that popped into my head was
No problemo
—from that moment on I had absolutely no intention of ever setting foot in Beezy’s Bookstore again.

*   *   *

It felt like an eternity, but within a few minutes one of the sheriff’s patrol cars arrived with its lights flashing red and blue, and then a deputy in full uniform stepped out and looked up and down the street. It was Morgan. He reached into the car through the open window and pulled out his deputy hat, which might have seemed strange on such a hot day, but I knew why. Except for at funerals and official events, deputies aren’t required to wear their department-issued hats, but it’s a symbol of reverence and respect. He also took his mirrored sunglasses off and slipped them down in his breast pocket.

I held my breath and kept completely still as he walked up to the front of the bookstore and looked through the window. Then he scanned the street again.

I’ll admit it wasn’t the most mature thing in the world, but I just couldn’t talk to anybody yet. I needed more time. I needed a little breathing room. At first I had considered sneaking over to Amber Jack’s and downing a shot of whiskey and a beer or two. Or three. Instead I just climbed into the backseat of the Bronco and slumped down with my legs stretched out over the center console.

Basically, I was hiding—and that’s where I stayed until McKenzie’s unmarked sedan pulled up a couple of minutes later, followed by another patrol car and an ominously silent ambulance.

The whole time, I couldn’t stop thinking about what McKenzie had said on the phone.
Oh, Dixie, I’m so sorry …
as if Mr. Hoskins had been my father or my dearest friend. As if finding his body would be a devastating blow to my delicate sensibilities. It was only later, when the street was cordoned off with police tape once again, and forensic workers, crime technicians, and Sarasota cops were swarming around the bookstore, that I realized: McKenzie must have thought seeing a dead body would bring up long-lost memories of Christy and Todd.

I couldn’t blame her, but it didn’t. I don’t have memories of Todd and Christy, at least none like that, and anyway, if those memories do exist they’re locked away so deep in the caverns of my mind that nothing could ever dislodge them.

I stayed in the Bronco until I didn’t think I could hide any longer without coming off looking like a complete imbecile. One of the cops saw me approaching and said, “Sorry, ma’am, this is a crime scene, you’ll have to go around.”

I just nodded. “Yeah. Detective McKenzie is probably looking for me.”

I can barely remember what happened next, but I know I must have told McKenzie everything, how Mrs. Silverthorn had hired me to find Cosmo, and how I’d seen something move in the bookstore window as I walked by. When I told her about the bloody paw print below the counter, she just nodded quietly, watching me with a pained expression on her face, and she only asked a few short questions, which was not like her at all. I wondered if she wasn’t a little embarrassed that I’d been able to find what she and her deputies hadn’t, but I couldn’t exactly take credit.

It was just dumb luck.

After I talked to McKenzie, I stood just outside the police tape and watched the proceedings. I overheard one of the deputies saying that the panel under the display window had been attached with just a few screws, which meant that someone had opened up the crawl space, hidden the body inside, and then simply screwed the panel back in place.

Then shortly after that, one of the deputies noticed an open vent in the alley. There were cat prints inside it and in the dirt right below, which confirmed that Cosmo—at least I hoped it was Cosmo—was probably traveling around in the abandoned ductwork. I imagined he’d been going in and out of the store on his own for years, using the vent as his own private entrance. That explained why there was no litter box in the store, but it also gave me hope. It meant he might come back.

Right about then one of the deputies pulled the police tape aside, and an ambulance backed up to within a couple of feet of the front door, which meant they were about to bring the body out.

I retreated to a bench down the street, the same bench, in fact, where the burly doctor had helped me carry Baldy after the accident. A crowd had formed across the street, most of them from the bar, and I’m sure the sight of Beezy’s Bookstore surrounded with emergency vehicles—twice in a matter of days—had people coming up with all kinds of theories about what was going on. I didn’t want to hear it.

Eventually a news van from the local TV station pulled up, and a smartly dressed woman with slicked-back hair popped out with her camera-carrying minion close behind. Anybody who knows me knows I don’t have the best track record when it comes to dealing with the press, so all the better that I stayed at a safe distance from the center of things.

BOOK: The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives
7.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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